I mentioned my target audience in the last post, as was assigned, but 300 words, so I'll just revisit that. I chose to invite my friend Mehak Gupta because she is a generally knowledgable and articulate first generation immigrant... She's also a harsh critic and I knew she would give me honest and constructive feedback.
I also invited Michael Edens, because he grew up in Madison County (where the film is set) and knows the history of the area. He also teaches ESL and citizenship classes at NTI in Springdale. He knows a lot about movies and is extremely observant, so those things also affected my decision to include him. Most of my questions were pretty broad - For example, I asked what was interesting, what else should be included or left out, and for suggestions on how to go about presenting a more unbiased look at some of the more sensitive content regarding the Iranian Resistance in my film. My first cut was pretty short and isn't at all reflective of how the film will look in the end. I only really had a few sequences worked out, so I thought it might be difficult for my target audience volunteers to understand what the film was about. However, in response to my question, "what do you think this film is about?", both volunteers' answers were pretty spot-on. Mehak answered, "Slice of life about an Iranian immigrant in rural Arkansas. The melding of his cultural background with that of rural Arkansas and how he still cares about the politics in his home country." Most of the suggestions were about adding more varied shots and context, which I do plan to do. Mehak also suggested that I add interview footage from an expert on the Iranian Resistance, and I have planned to interview an expert this week. This is something I've been having trouble with as well: How to present Hooshang's involvement with the Iranian Resistance. Hooshang himself doesn't really practice any religion and all he wants is equality for Iranian people and for a government free of corruption. However, the Iranian Resistance is well-known for it's cult-like activities and have been behind a lot of violence. I think Hoosh thinks of it the way we've probably all come to think about politics, in that political affairs are often like the Train Problem thought experiment. I'm having an ethical conundrum because I know Hoosh's motivations and I want to make sure to separate his beliefs with those of the organization as a whole. As far as progress goes though, I have three more shoots scheduled and then I should be done! I have the interview I mentioned above, another interview with Joe Hawkins, who wrote the Hooshburger song, and I plan to shoot some more testimonials to add at the beginning of my film that will help to set up the Hooshburger hype. I've been having pretty good luck finding music that really fits with the film lately too, but I'm also not sure how much music to add. I don't want to go overboard, and I don't want to have too little. Other than having to keep up with deadlines, I'm pretty satisfied with how my film is progressing. â Here's a behind the scenes shot of Hooshang while filming a "going to work" sceneWorking on audio
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Last week I worked on editing and putting together the first cut of my film, which was pretty difficult since the school was closed over the weekend when I had planned to spend working on it. I've only been working on this project since January, unlike my classmates who have been working on their projects for almost two semesters now, so I'm still catching up - I'm still filming and have even more interviews to schedule, so my script is constantly changing and I've decided to keep a "working script" so I can make those changes when I need to. And the fact that the film is a documentary film also makes the script more likely to be constantly changing. I personally prefer editing my film without a script for now, which unfortunately takes a lot longer - but once I'm finished filming, I think perfecting my script would be extremely beneficial for editing.
I've invited my very good friend Mehak Gupta to the screening this week as one of my target audience members. She's a first generation immigrant and is extremely knowledgable of the politics of the area. Michael Edens is my second recruit. He grew up in the area the film takes place in and teaches ESL and citizenship classes at Northwest Technical Institute, so he knows a lot about the history of the area, and about immigration in Northwest Arkansas. Here's a screenshot of the timeline I'm currently working on. Soundbite
Last week, I reworked and added some more footage to my teaser/open.
Hooshburger Open from Rachel Bernstein on Vimeo.
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